Life's Choices
by flying at tree level
Summary: Casey can't seem to figure out which direction she wants to go in her life. And she looks for help in all the wrong places.


**I don't know where this came from. I've been reading the book Twelve by Nick McDonell so that might have something to do with it? I don't know. **

**I don't own Life With Derek.**

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><p>Casey fell asleep again. Lately, daytime naps were becoming like her favorite thing.<p>

She knew napping was counterproductive and a sure way to not get any work done, but she couldn't help it. In the middle of typing a paper her eyes started to get heavy and her mind started to shut down, the way it always did lately when she tried to think about school or anything related to school. So she closed her laptop and gave up trying.

Beside her on the couch was the blanket her mom had sent to her in their monthly care package. She grabbed it and spread it out on top of her so that it reached her feet and she rested her head on the arm of the sofa, feeling somewhat comforted. Her favorite part about taking naps were the moments right before she fell asleep when her brain started to fire off all kinds of random images and thoughts that made no sense, but let her know just how tired she really was. Sleeping was the only thing she liked doing these days.

When she woke up, maybe an hour and a half later, Derek was home and she could hear him messing around in the kitchen. She yawned, not feeling quite as charged as she should've considering how much she slept but she decided to make an attempt to get up anyway. She swung her legs off the couch and tossed the blanket aside. Her body parts felt like lead.

"I brought you something," Derek said, sitting down next to her.

He wasn't as mean to her as he normally was but that was only because he felt sorry for her. He got to see firsthand how pathetic she'd become.

"Really?" She hoped it was food, like _real_ food because she hadn't eaten anything but cereal and milk the past couple of days.

"Yeah," he said and she watched him reach into his jacket pocket and pull out a little plastic baggie with a joint inside and toss it onto her lap. "Your welcome."

She furrowed her eyebrows_. _"Derek what am I supposed to do with this?"

"Well, let's see..."

"I mean why are you giving it to me? You know I don't do drugs."

"Well, maybe you should start."

If it was one of her better days she would've gotten upset, maybe lectured him or something. But she didn't really feel like getting all worked up so she just kept her mouth shut.

"It's a gift okay, just accept it," he said.

She examined it for a second and then tossed it back to him. "I don't want it."

"Just take it Casey. You need to do something besides just sitting around all day. You're like completely useless now."

"And you think _this_ is the solution to my problems?" she asked.

And he said, "We won't know unless you try it."

"I don't know..."

"I'm trying to help you."

Listening to Derek was never a good idea, she knew that from experience. But at the same time Derek was the only person who seemed to understand her situation, and the only one who could possibly help her. And she sort of trusted him.

Maybe sometimes when you were down you needed to hit rock bottom before you could pick yourself back up again.

"Fine, whatever."

Derek lit the joint and told her to hold it.

He told her to breathe it in deeply and kind of swallow it so that it reached her lungs and then exhale. The first time it felt like the inside of her chest had caught on fire. She coughed and choked on the smoke until her eyes watered.

"The first time always sucks."

"Could you get me some water please?" she asked. Her voice was all raspy.

He handed her a water bottle from out of his hockey bag. She took a big gulp and it helped, a little.

"Umm, so are you gonna..?" She offered him the joint but he put his hand up, refusing it.

"No thanks. I said it was a gift for _you_. And besides, it's hockey season."

"Oh, right." So Casey realized she would be going on this trip alone. Part of her couldn't help but wonder if he was doing this, not because he wanted to help her but because he was bored and just wanted to mess with her, like play puppet master and watch her bounce off the walls and stuff.

"Do you feel anything?" he asked.

She tried to focus in on herself and see if anything was different. "Not really."

"Take another hit."

She did it again and she choked again but it wasn't as bad because this time she'd been expecting it.

"Now close your eyes and try to think about something that makes you happy."

"I don't even know what that is anymore," she said, but she closed her eyes and did as she was told. She tried picturing her family but the images that came to mind didn't make her feel good at all. She saw her mom, George and her father looking down at her while she sat with the joint in her hand, staring and shaking their heads in disapproval. She saw how disappointed their faces would be if they knew she was on the verge of losing her scholarship because at the rate she was going, she probably wouldn't be able to maintain the grades for it. And she saw her siblings who used to look up to her not wanting to look at her anymore because now Derek was probably a better role model than she was.

When she opened her eyes she saw Derek was watching her; she looked at him and saw double, like two Dereks blurred into one and fuzzy around the edges. She squinted trying to focus on him and he put his hand on her shoulder, told her to relax.

"Wanna try something?" he asked.

"Umm, sure."

He picked up the lit joint from the tray on the table and put it in between his teeth so that the lit part was inside his mouth and he motioned for her to come forward. She scooted towards him and he held the sides of her head with his hands so that her mouth was positioned at the other end of the joint. She opened her mouth instinctually and inhaled the smoke he blew out, with their lips almost touching. There was a lot of smoke and she took in all of it, and then she exhaled.

Her body felt all tingly and weird; she got goosebumps and she wasn't sure if it was because of the marijuana or if it was from having her mouth so close to his. She wasn't sure if she liked that feeling. But in her mind there weren't any real thoughts, none of the usual worries that she always let preoccupy her brain and that's what she liked about being high. If you didn't worry about anything and you didn't care about anything then nothing could touch you. Nothing could hurt you. That feeling was safe and it made her feel perfectly at ease with herself. She sat on the sofa facing Derek with her arms around her knees hugged up against her chest, feeling smaller somehow. So small that maybe she could float away. She held on tightly to herself as if that could in some way keep her grounded.

Derek started to get up but she grabbed his arm. "Where are you going?"

"I have to pee," he said.

Casey gripped his arm tighter. "You can't leave me here." She needed his weight next to her to help her stay grounded, to keep her attached to the earth. She wouldn't feel safe without him.

He pulled himself loose. "Casey, relax. I'll be right back, just...watch some tv or something."

He grabbed the remote and turned on the television and walked away. _Three's Company_ was on but she couldn't really pay attention to it. Being alone made her feel all paranoid. She held onto the sofa trying not to float away, and she tried to remember everything she learned about gravity in her high school physics class.

She couldn't remember anything.

It felt like Derek was gone for an eternity but in reality it was only like three minutes. He came back and plopped down next to her. "How are we feeling?"

"Better I think? I don't know. Could you like put your arm around me just in case I start to float away or something."

He looked at her and raised his eyebrow, trying to decide whether she was being serious or not.

"You're not gonna float away, Casey. You need to relax."

"Stop telling me to relax. Why did you make me do this in the first place?"

"I already told you why, now just stop thinking about it so much. Nothing bad is gonna happen alright?"

She took a couple deep breaths and tried to go back to that happy, calm place. "Just don't leave me alone again."

"Okay, I won't."

She fell asleep again holding onto his arm and leaning on his shoulder because she didn't trust him not to leave her and she needed him there as like a security blanket. But when she woke up he was still there, awake and staring at the TV.

She sat up groggy-eyed, greeted by the sound of her stomach growling. "How long was I asleep for?"

"Like three hours." It was past eleven o'clock.

Casey frowned, knowing she would probably be up for the rest of the night. "I'm starving. We don't have anything to eat do we?"

"Nahh, I don't think so."

For some reason their refrigerator was rarely stocked, either due to lack of funds or lack of ability to remember to go grocery shopping in the first place.

"Can we order a pizza then?" She would've killed for pizza.

He pointed out that none of the pizza places were gonna be open that late and suggested they just go to a fast food place instead. Whatever, she wasn't gonna be choosy.

They went to a McDonald's and ordered through the drive-thru, but then they decided to just park in the parking lot and eat. And it felt so good for Casey to just pig out the way she did; she felt like she hadn't eaten in days. Normally she hated fast food but that night she loved it. Derek made fun of her for being such a carnivore because normally she made fun of him for it.

"Derek do you really think I'm useless?" she asked him.

"No," he told her truthfully. "At least not always."

"You probably think I'm like this big loser now."

"You're not a loser. You just act like one."

She pressed her forehead up against the cold glass of the window and closed her eyes. She was completely sober now.

"I don't know how else to act. I mean I don't know how to be myself again."

And he told her very honestly that she only felt that way because she was a coward. "You just need to grow up and stop acting like a child. Your life isn't that hard Casey."

Casey pulled her legs up on the seat and curled herself into a ball so that she was practically in the fetal position. Derek sighed. "I know I'm hard on you sometimes or whatever.."

"No, it's fine. I like it when you're mean to me," she said.

Their relationship was different now and it really didn't make sense to either of them. Some days Casey felt like a masochist for putting up with the way he treated her and not saying anything back to defend herself.

"You're not as pathetic as you're trying to be," he said.

"Can we just go home now please?"

When they got back to their apartment Derek said he was tired and he went straight to bed. Casey's body felt tired but her mind was wide awake so she sat up all night in the living room, watching reruns on TVLand. She finished smoking the rest of her joint and around 4 a.m. she finally went to bed.

She started smoking on the regular because she didn't really know what else to do, and like Derek said, she needed to do _something_. Derek was more than willing to provide for her and he actually thought it was kind of amusing how she was turning into such a huge pothead. It was easier for her to be stoned than to sit around dwelling on all the mistakes she was making with her life. So she'd sit in her room by herself and close the blinds, turn on some music and she'd light up and pace the floors, thinking about nothing. Or sometimes she'd sit in the living room and stare at the TV, just watching the pictures move but not really paying attention to what was going on. It wasn't as scary doing it alone now because she knew what to expect and she knew how to fight off the paranoia and just relax and stay calm, like Derek said.

She spent a couple of days in limbo, avoiding school, avoiding work, and just avoiding people altogether and she honestly thought that she'd never been happier with herself.

But then her mom called her and her paradise was interrupted. She panicked because she knew she couldn't talk to her mother on the phone if she was high, so at first she let it go to voicemail. But then the phone started ringing again and it kept ringing and Casey started to worry that there was some kind of family emergency so she picked up.

"H-hello?"

Her mom's voice was ridiculously cheery. "Casey! I hope you're not busy, we just haven't talked in so long so I guess I'm just calling to check up on you. How are you?"

"Oh. I'm fine mom."

"How's Derek? Is he staying out of trouble?"

"Derek's great," she said.

There was a pause.

"Casey are you alright?"

And she started to worry again. She hoped her voice wasn't doing anything weird or anything like that.

"Yeah, I'm okay. I'm fine why?"

"I don't know, you just sound...tired."

"I guess so..."

Then Casey started to zone out, the voice on the other end of the phone sounding more and more distant. And she started tripping.

_Casey...Casey are you there? Did you hear what I said? Just try not to push yourself too hard okay? Don't put too much pressure on yourself...and just remember that we're all gonna love you no matter what you do. _And then there was crying in the background._ Well, there goes Simon so I'd better go. I love you, Casey. We all do and we miss you._

-click-

She tossed the phone aside wishing that whole conversation had never happened. She felt like such a failure as a daughter, she wanted to cry.

She finally left her room for the first time that day and for some reason, wandered into Derek's room. It was a mess as usual. He never made his bed and he left his clothes lying around everywhere.

On his nightstand there was a small packet of papers stapled together, a paper he had written for school with satisfactory remarks from the professor written on it in red ink. He'd gotten a perfect grade. _So all those years in high school he was just pretending to be stupid_, she thought. Next to the paper was a picture of a girl she didn't recognize, blonde and smiling widely with her hands on her hips.

Casey was envious of Derek and how put together his life was. He seemed to have everything going exactly the way he had planned. She wanted that for herself so badly, but she just couldn't seem to figure out how to make that happen. She knew the things she was supposed to do but she just couldn't seem to make herself do them. And Derek was so perfect with his perfect hair and perfect looks, just as popular there as he was in high school. She laid down in his bed and thought about him, thought about all the girls that were probably in love with him. Derek could always get whoever and whatever he wanted.

His bed smelled like him and she felt like a freak for noticing it but she did. It was comforting in a way. She decided that he was attractive enough for her to fantasize about so she closed her eyes and pictured it, just to see if she could see it. In her mind she was sitting around waiting for him to get home from hockey practice as usual. But he didn't walk right past her like he normally did, instead he stopped and leaned down to kiss her, grabbed the side of her face and crashed his lips down onto hers. Neither of them would say anything, just breathing and pulling at each other's clothes and his lips against her skin. And she would just let him take whatever he wanted. And he'd probably be using her, she'd know that but she wouldn't care because it would mean that she wasn't _completely_ useless and somehow that would make it okay.

She opened her eyes and thought that it maybe wouldn't be so bad, being intimate with him in that way. When she got up her skin felt clammy and gross.

She went into the bathroom and undressed, deciding that she needed a shower after...that. So she let the warm water caress her skin and erase all the previous thoughts she was having about him because she was well aware of how messed up they were.

_It's probably the weed_, she thought.

The first thing she asked him when he came home later that day was, "Derek do you have a girlfriend?"

He said no but she could tell he was lying.

"You don't have to lie about it, I don't really care. I saw her picture on your nightstand. She's pretty."

"She's not my girlfriend, she's just a girl. And why were you in my room?"

"I don't know...I was bored. And stoned so I started wandering."

He shook his head at her like she was just so pathetic.

And she thought, Y_eah I know I am._

"But I've decided that I'm not gonna smoke anymore," she said.

"Since what like five seconds ago?"

"Since earlier today when my mom called me and I had no clue what to say to her."

"You shouldn't have answered the phone," he said. That was probably like a cardinal rule of using drugs. Never try to talk to your parents while your high.

"I know."

"What did she say to you?"

To be honest Casey couldn't really remember. "I don't even know. My head hurts really-"

She started to get dizzy so she sat down.

"Maybe you really do need to stop," he said.

She closed her eyes and blinked really hard until the feeling went away. And when she looked up at Derek she could see him clearly.

"You know, if you were a good brother you never would have let me start doing it in the first place. Let alone suggested it."

"Well I never said I was a good brother did I?" Nope, not ever. That was the one thing there was never a question about.

Casey gave Derek back his weed and made him promise to keep it away from her. She didn't know what she was gonna do but she knew it wasn't going to be that anymore.

"Just out of curiousity have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?"

And when he said that to her she put her head down in her lap and covered her ears. She was tired of him insulting her and beating up on her all the time. Sometimes it was too much for her. She knew her skin had no color except for the darkness around her eyes and that her hair was always stringy and messy, and she knew she looked like crap but she didn't need him pointing it out and making her feel worse about it.

"I'm not being mean, I'm just saying you'd probably feel a lot better if you looked a little better."

"Leave me alone."

"I wasn't calling you ugly."

She tried to tune him out with the thoughts in her head.

"Casey, you know you couldn't be ugly if you tried," he said, and then she gave up on ignoring him because it was practically impossible. And if she wasn't mistaken he had just complimented her.

"Okay, fine just drop it."

She really felt like she hated him sometimes. I mean she knew he was her only family there and the closest thing to a friend that she had but there were moments when she really couldn't stand him.

"Maybe I shouldn't try to help you anymore," he said.

"Yeah, maybe you shouldn't."

But the fact that he was even trying at all (in his own stupid, Derek-ish way) should have counted for something.

"Casey will you look at me?"

She didn't want to, she wanted to keep her head in her lap and her ears covered forever. But Derek sort of took her by the hair, gently and made her face him. He locked his eyes on her and she didn't want to look at him but her eyes became transfixed on his and his mouth and the words he started saying.

"Listen to me. You're not stupid okay? You have to stop thinking like that. You're just...scared or something."

"I don't know how to not be scared," she said quietly.

"You just have to _try_, Case. You're not happy right? You're probably miserable."

She wiped her nose with her sleeve.

"What else are you gonna do? Pack up and move back home? Take a year off college and do nothing?"

There were voices inside her head screaming at her not to listen to him, telling her that he was wrong. That she could hide and she could keep hiding as long as she wanted to. But everything else in her mind told her otherwise and deep down she knew he was right. She couldn't go on like this forever and the way she saw it she only had two choices: she could give up, call her mom and tell her the truth, which was that she was failing at life. Or she could suck it up and she could try. She could try again and maybe get it right this time.

When he was done talking, Derek let go of her hair and pressed his lips hard against her forehead.

And then he walked away, leaving her there to make her decision.

But the more she thought about it the more she realized that she really didn't have a choice because she couldn't exactly move _backwards _could she_?_ So there was nothing she could do but move forward and the next day she realized she had to start doing it. She hated getting up in the morning but she did it anyway. And she got dressed and went jogging like she used to do. It was cold and cloudy outside and the sky started drizzling, but she kept moving until it started to feel good. She kept going until she couldn't breathe and then she slowed down, but once she caught her breath she started back up again. She ran until her chest hurt that morning but afterwards she felt a lot better. It must have been the endorphins.

At some point she stopped at a park bench and called her mom, decided to tell her the truth. Or part of the truth anyway.

She told her, "I've been kinda going through a rough patch, mom. And I miss home a lot."

Casey confessed about all the doubts she was having and how unsure of herself she was and Nora told her that that was normal. Not everyone was gonna settle into living in a new place as easy as everyone else. Casey realized she had sugarcoated it though, left a lot of stuff out and made it sound less serious than it probably was but that was mostly for her mom's benefit.

"Pretty soon it'll be time for winter break. We can't wait to see you guys," Nora said.

"Yeah, me too." The thought of going home for Christmas did raise her positivity level.

She'd be lying if she said that after that morning everything in her life started to make sense, that she had a big moment of clarity and suddenly she became 'Perfect Casey' again (she knew that wasn't how it worked). But something as simple as going for a jog in the morning did make a difference and it seemed to be a step in the right direction. And that's all she really needed.

And it was weird but she knew there was someone she needed to thank for her being able to get up that morning. So after her jog she hung out around outside the rink where he was practicing. And she waited for him.

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><p><strong>Okay here goes my blah blah blah author's note :)<strong>

**This story was about depression, not the really severe kind but the annoying kind that kinda holds you back from doing what you want to do or what you should be doing with your life. And it makes you want to do nothing. Where you want to sleep all the time and stay inside and watch tv all day and not be around people. And eat junk food or not eat anything at all. And you don't care about the way people treat you because you don't care about anything so you just let people talk to you however they want as long as they just leave you alone.**

**It's also kind of about being afraid of the future and that part I could definitely relate to because the whole time I was writing Casey I kept thinking _holy crap, what if this is me in like two years?_**

**So yeah, anyways if anybody read this thanks a bunch! And please leave a review :P (colon pee)**


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